Details

Title

The Repulsive Bed

Artist/Maker

Clarence John Laughlin (American, 1905–1985)

Date

1941

Medium

Gelatin silver print

Dimensions

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Credit

Purchase

Accession #

74.158

On View

Currently not on view

Referring to his own fraught relationships with women, Laughlin described this ethereal photograph of a woman lounging atop a collapsed, tattered bed in a decaying house as an “Image of those who endure marriage, without love, because of convention. [The] marriage bed becomes repulsive, and part of it turns into a monster head.” The veil across the woman’s face gives her a haunting look, as if she is fading away along with the house around her. The cracks in the wall reinforce the idea of a fractured, failing marriage, while the shadows envelop her in darkness.

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